I am the official queen of melodrama, and I wear my crown with pride.
I hope I managed to catch any and all errors, but if you find one, know it was probably from my cat standing on my keyboard.
I awoke to a pressure point in the middle of my forehead, maybe the barrel of a gun. But moving or fighting back sounded like too much work. I was too tired to be concerned with dying.
"Bang," someone said above me. Peeling my eyes open, I found a hand in the mock shape of a gun pointed at me. Mamoru drew it back with a grin. "Too late. You're already dead."
I answered with a hum, still too sleepy for speech. After three rounds of practice sparring in a row, my body had enough. It seemed I'd passed out as soon as I flopped down on the lounge couch. But as usual, Mamoru had no intentions of letting me sleep peacefully.
"So I guess you're on break then?" he asked. Those bright eyes of his gleamed with his usual eagerness. He was like a big puppy, impossible to discourage.
"I am," I sighed, "and I was having such a nice time too."
"And now you're having a better time." He placed his hands down on the cushion by my ears, blocking out the lights as he leaned over me. The couch dipped by my hip under the weight of his knee. He was so sure he was going to get away with this, the bastard.
"We're not doing this here," I hissed.
Rather than feel discouraged like a normal person, his grin widened. Despite my hands shoving against his shoulders, he pressed himself close enough to nuzzle my neck. "Why not?" The heat of his breath brushed across my skin. Keeping my voice even was a struggle.
"We're both dead if Warrius comes in, but especially you. No relationships during missions, remember?" The only rule broken more often was no drinking during missions. From the first day we arrived, Mamoru had his mind set on bedding me. The flirting was relentless. I had no choice but to give in.
"Your uncle is training the kid right now, so you have me all to yourself," he hummed.
"This is a bad idea." Even as I said it, I exposed more of my neck to him, his lips brushing up toward my jaw. Everything about being close to him was a bad idea, not only because we could get caught, but because I was starting to enjoy it.
"Please keep your private relationships in private," Marina said coolly to the chimes of mugs clinking in the cabinet.
I jolted upright so fast that I threw Mamoru back into the opposite arm of the couch. His face screwed up in disappointment, but he didn't look the least bit ashamed. Unlike him, my face felt aflame. "Sorry," I wheezed.
Marina might as well have walked in on us chatting about the weather, her expression flat with disinterest as she poured herself some coffee. "If you have the energy to play around in the lounge, you have the energy to continue training," she said.
Mamoru heaved a sigh despite the grin creeping onto his features. "Oh come on, Marina. He needs to have just a little energy to spare. Screwing around is good for morale and all that. At least, it gives me great inspiration." He placed his hand to his chest, and Marina's eyes narrowed. I leaned away from him, all too aware of what was coming.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
"No," Marina muttered into her mug. "I'll take the hint, but if I catch you again like this, Zero might just find out about it."
Mamoru's arm hooked around my neck, jerking me back to him as she stormed out. He snickered like the devil he was, his cheek pressed into my hair. My neck was twisted and cramped in the awkward position, but I couldn't bring myself to fight him.
"I really do want to go back to sleep," I sighed.
"You can nap in my room. I'll play you a sappy lullaby." He pulled an old harmonica from his pocket, waving it as though it was a threat. But I did love when he played it for me, even if everyone else complained about it. "And when you wake up full of energy," he continued, "we can pick up where we left off."
"Oh, you spoil me," I drawled, tugging away. He released me with another soft laugh. As I stood and stretched, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He watched me in return. His expression eased to a smile.
"Yama," he said at length. "Do you love me yet?"
I gave up on twisting the kinks from my back. Under the weight of his question, my lungs felt stuffed with cotton. Each breath came with effort. "No," I said around the catch in my throat. It was the only truth I had for him.
"I told you from the beginning – we can sleep together, but that's it. I have no feelings for you." My eyes shut against the lie as I forced it out. I hoped the more I said it, the truer it could become.
He made a slight noise of consideration as he stood. "I would say I'm starting to fall for you, but since I'm not allowed to, let's make a deal." He stuck out a hand despite my attempt to look as disapproving as possible. "If neither of us are picked up by the Arcadia, you'll let me take you out on a real date when we get back."
It was yet another bad idea. He was giving me something to hope for, something to look forward to, but I needed to board the Arcadia, and that most likely meant never seeing him again. And if the Arcadia picked him, then I would have nothing.
But I was brought to my knees by that gentle adoration warming in his eyes. I must have raised my hand, as I felt his close around it. He broke out into a grin. "And then you'll fall in love with me," he said.
"I'm not agreeing to that part."
As always, his smile stayed. Leaning down, he pressed his forehead to mine. I knew he'd start spouting off more of that damn poetry, lines that were never his own. Even Bainas groaned every time he recited something.
But when he was so close, whispering it to me, I couldn't keep a smile from itching at my lips.
"I am mad with love," he breathed. "And no one understands my plight."
I didn't love him. We weren't even friends. He was a distraction from training, nothing else. But he was a distraction I was always content to let myself fall into, and it made him dangerous.
I tried to convince Harlock to stay on the bridge, to just stay as far from Mamoru as possible and let me handle the situation.
In silence, he refused. I tried to push him away from the lift, but his feet remained planted. I tried to rush ahead of him in the hall, but he grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and held me at his side. He didn't appear upset about the situation, but his expression was as placid as usual. I couldn't spot any of the usual ticks that gave away his feelings, no twitching fingers or wandering eye.
"He's a good person," I said as we neared the hangar, unsure what Harlock might think of Mamoru. "He's just a bit…"
Mamoru was a great many things, so many it was difficult to choose one adequate word. Harlock glanced my way as the door to the hangar slid open and I continued chewing on the thought. My only warning was watching his eye go wide before I felt Mamoru slam into me.
"Yama!" he cooed, his arms locked around my chest. "Did you miss me?"
With my ribs crushed into my lungs, I wheezed in response, while he buried his face in my hair.
I looked at Harlock to find his tensed hand hovering over his gun. His eye darted over Mamoru in cautious appraisal until I was released, held out at arm's length. Even then, Harlock only relaxed his hand enough to rest his wrist against the gun's handle.
As he looked me over, Mamoru's ever-brilliant smile faded. "They've really done a number on you, haven't they?" he sighed, brow pinched at the sight of the bandage slapped across my forehead.
I wanted to tell him he looked the same as always, but my throat swelled shut against me. He did look the same, but he also looked like he hadn't slept in days. His hair was an unkempt mess, deep bags like bruises beneath his eyes. It was the same way he'd looked the day we departed from the base, the day he pulled me into a desperate kiss and whispered how he'd see me again.
But I didn't want to see him again, not here, not like this.
His hand drifted up toward my cheek, but Harlock was faster. With a soft yelp, Mamoru was tugged off his feet like a mangy tabby being held by the scruff of the neck. Harlock swung him around and deposited him in the doorway. "Walk," Harlock ordered.
"We're not dueling here?"
"We're not dueling, not yet. We're going to talk somewhere first. Move."
If this was part of some plan, I wished I would have been informed about it. Glancing over his shoulder, Mamoru looked to me for answers, but I had none for him. I could only return his confusion.
"I guess if you want to chat a bit before the fight, we can," he said as he started forward. "I can even tell you some of Yama's kinks if you want."
He threw me a playful grin while I glared in return. I couldn't imagine how he was acting so calm about all of this, and the way he spoke about the duel made it seem as though he'd be taking on Harlock. Harlock, the man who tried to hide a cringe every time he leaned on his crutch, the man whose nose was still crooked, the man who was most definitely not going to be taking part in any more duels while I was still around.
Despite that, he seemed all too willing to go along with what Mamoru said. "I believe I know quite a few of his kinks, but I appreciate the sentiment."
"Both of you, stop it," I hissed. As Mamoru snickered at my misfortune, I held my hands in tight fists at my sides, my right shoulder aching against me.
"It's really a shame," he sighed, strolling along with an easy gait. "I'm sure the three of us could have gotten along very well together. I'd much rather we'd shared a bed than a battlefield, you know?"
My hand found its way to my face, warm even against the heat spreading across my cheeks. From between my fingers, I peered over to see Harlock's brows raised. He didn't respond otherwise.
"Mamoru," I huffed. "This isn't the time for jokes."
He spun on his heel, grinning as he continued on backward. "But I'm deathly serious, except, well…" His expression screwed up in irritation as he pointed to his right eye. Of course, he had the same implant as Helmatier and the others. Gaia was listening in on every word. Harlock still looked as unfazed by this as ever, while my ears felt as though they were cooking.
Mamoru noticed with a smile. "I'm glad you haven't changed much," he said.
I wasn't forced to respond, not that I knew what to say, but thankfully Harlock spoke up. "We'll take the lift and go to the planning room. If we decide dueling is the only option, we'll return here."
My attempt to remind him that he was not the one who would be dueling was drowned out by Mamoru. "I'm not a prisoner then?" he asked, both of them ignoring me. "Does that mean you can get me some coffee and a snack? That was a long flight, and the food was terrible."
Harlock shrugged, a twitch of his shoulders. "Fair enough. For now, I prefer to consider you a guest, rather than a prisoner, but understand, I can't let you have free reign of the ship."
As Mamoru nodded, his back hit the lift doors. Though he seemed willing to cooperate, he glanced over Harlock with his brow furrowed. I guessed he was as confused by this as I was, though he only spoke of what foods he wanted the rest of the walk. By the end, he had a whole buffet laid out. "But really," he decided, "if I could just get some rice balls, that would be perfect."
Within fifteen minutes of Harlock sending word to the cook, she had a platter of rice balls for us on the planning room table. The table took up most of the room, with the three of us seated all in a row on one side. Sitting opposite one another would require calling back and forth across its screen-like surface. The walls were similar, all black without power.
Harlock allowed Mamoru to knock back a mug of coffee and a few rice balls before the makeshift interrogation began. "So you watched the fights between us and the other assassins?" Harlock asked.
Mamoru picked up another rice ball with a sigh. "I'm not sure what all I'm allowed to tell you, but I guess Helmatier revealed that much already, so yes, I've seen all those feeds. Helmatier was also the one who said she thought you two were sleeping together." A brief smile crossed his lips. "That's right, isn't it?"
"Next question," I grumbled. "You're all coming from the same base, right? So you're all staying together?"
"Don't know if I can tell you this, but I guess that much is obvious." He shrugged. "I didn't get to see them much, but yeah, Helmatier, Zero, Bainas, and Oki were all at the base too."
"Who else?" Harlock pressed.
He crossed his arms as a curious smile quirked his lips. "Okay, that I know I can't tell you, but to be completely honest, I don't even know who's in charge of this whole operation. It's all real hush-hush, and they kept us all pretty isolated."
Harlock looked at Mamoru like he was a child telling an obvious lie, but nodded his assent regardless. "So why are you here?"
"I thought I already said that. I'm here to see Yama and have a duel." He threw me a smile as though this was a perfectly logical reason.
"So they're not bribing you?" Harlock asked.
Mamoru rubbed at the bags under his eyes, his expression fading to a frown. "Like with money? Nah. I mean, sure it's a job, so they're going to pay me for it if I get back alive. But that's the point – it's a job. I was trained as an assassin, and that's what I'm doing."
Harlock let silence hold the air for a few breaths, though his eye seemed to be dissecting Mamoru with a sharp curiosity. "And what if we refused you your duel?" he asked at length. "We could refuel your ship and send you back the way you came, or we could simply hold you here and drop you off at the nearest inhabited planet. Gaia hasn't given me a good reason to hold up my end of these constant duels, so why should we go through with this?"
Mamoru's hand settled on the table, exhaustion weighing his eyes. He swallowed as his hand curled into a fist, so tight I could see every ridge of his knucklebones. "You can't," he said, soft as a breath. Then his eyes hardened, widening with fire and fury. "You can't refuse," he hissed. "I have to have this duel. I need it."
In a flash of movement, he turned on Harlock, fingers digging into the collar of his cape. Harlock's expression was a mask of calm as Mamoru bared down on him. "I'll fight you here and now if I have to," he spat.
He was about to spout more venom, but I would not listen to it. Before he could continue. I latched onto the back of his collar and jerked him back toward me. He gave a startled choke as his shirt dug into his neck. "That's enough!" I barked as his arms whirled in an attempt to keep himself upright. "You're not dueling him! You're dueling me!"
I'd never seen him angry before. He wore a smile like it was just another article of clothing, so seeing genuine rage burning in those deep brown eyes felt wrong. But when he turned to me, his anger was eclipsed by despair.
When he was angry, I could fight back with my own anger, but the utter desperation in his expression left me feeling empty.
"Yama," he whispered. "Are you sure? We've fought so many times before, and I…" His gaze drifted to the center of my chest, where he'd shot me through so many times with our training guns that I was left aching from the bruises. They bloomed in a swarm of black and red over my heart, and it became so painful to breathe that I had to take a day off, a day where he spent all his free time coddling me.
I'd trained with him more than any other assassin, yet I only ever beat him twice. He should have jumped at the chance of such odds. There shouldn't have been any hesitation. If this duel was really so important to him, he should have been happy to kill me. That way, it would have been easier for me to find the drive to kill him.
"Either you duel me, or there is no duel."
His expression twisted in pain, as though I'd stabbed him with my answer. "Alright," he murmured. He forced a smile against the emotions swimming in his eyes. "Then we should get on with it. If I let myself get too distracted by you, I might forget why I'm here."
I almost asked him again – why was he here? He'd never seemed all that interested in killing Harlock to begin with, and he'd given me a reason to hope neither of us would be picked up by the Arcadia. This fight didn't seem to belong to him. He was just another one of Gaia's puppets.
He deserved better. They all did.
Harlock stood, unable to hide a wince as he leaned on his crutch. "Then let's go back to the hangar."
"Right," Mamoru sighed. "I guess we'll be enemies when we get down there, so I should say goodbye now."
No, I didn't want any goodbyes. It would only make this more painful.
As he stepped up to me, I told myself to back away. I shouldn't have let him get close. We needed to forget the past and get to the hangar. I just wanted the fight over and done with, regardless of the outcome.
But my feet felt too heavy to move. He looked like he carried a world of troubles on his shoulders, and I couldn't deny him one last request. His hand came to rest against my cheek, traces of affection amidst the sadness in his eyes. "I wish we could have had that date," he breathed.
"I wish you hadn't come here," I murmured. I didn't love him, but I couldn't deny that I cared for him. He was a friend, and I wanted him to find someone else who could make him happy. I wanted him to live out his life, safe and content. Even so, I didn't want to die to achieve that.
He brushed a kiss just below the bandage on my forehead, whispered words that weren't his, claiming them with the rare hues of sadness in his voice. "I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, You grew up with me, were a boy with me…" His sigh laced through my hair as softly as his fingers used to brush lazy patterns through it. "I am to wait- I do not doubt I am to meet you again." He pulled away with that damning affection haunting his eyes. "Fight well, Yama," he said as his fingers slipped from my cheek.
"I'll give you everything I've got," I answered.
As Mamoru started for the door, Harlock appeared at my side, his lips pressed tight. His eye was settled away from either of us until he grasped my chin and led me into a kiss, so brief I didn't have time to respond. "Don't you dare die," he whispered as he pulled away.
I wasn't planning on it, but Mamoru's sharpshooting far surpassed my own. I could win in a match of turrets, but handguns were his specialty. At least the match would be over quickly. We just needed one clear shot, and the other would go down.
No one spoke as we returned to the hangar. It seemed better that way. The silence made me feel dazed, made me wonder if any of this could even be real. Surely I would wake up soon. The assassins, the mission, the explosion – none of it could be real. I would wake up back home, back in the greenhouses. Things were always quiet there, and no one had to die.
But in reality, that was the dream now. The truth stared me down as Mamoru pulled his gun from its holster. "Would you like a quick draw or a cover fight?" he asked.
"Our only cover here are the fighters," I said. "But I am notoriously terrible at quick draws, so I guess a cover fight will have to do."
He nodded, looking as exhausted as I felt. No rush of adrenaline sustained me. It seemed I'd used the last of it up in my previous fights. Now I could only feel tired. I didn't want to die, but I wanted this over and done with.
No, that wasn't right. I didn't want it to happen at all.
I looked to Harlock, who didn't hide the worry in his face. It made me feel sick to see him like that, to see him scared for me. If I died, it would hurt him more than anyone, and I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't hurt him. I'd already hurt enough people.
I hadn't said my goodbyes to him, but Mamoru and I were at our end. If I lived, I could have Harlock. I could hold him again, feel his warmth and breathe his scent. Whether I lived or died, I couldn't have Mamoru again. He was lost to me, a living ghost. Just like Ezra. Just like Warrius.
"Same rules as always. Ten seconds," he said, as though to hold off having to count them down. "Ready?"
I nodded.
"Let's begin."
He used to say that with a grin on his face, used to start blasting away with a wild laugh. He fought like a child playing a game, and his joy was infectious. I loved our fights, even when I inevitably lost. He made training something I could enjoy.
I wished I could hear him laugh again, wished I could replace our guns with those useless training pistols.
We took our cover in silence, and I closed my eye until time was up. My shoulder was pressed to the cool metal leg of a fighter, just as I'd done with Warrius. There were no other options.
With the time up, he fired a couple pot shots my way to see if he could startle me out in the open. "Hey," he called. "If you were going to use this hangar for a battlefield, you should have put more cover barriers in it. There's nothing to work with here."
"Yeah, I'm sure putting barriers all over the floor will work out great when we need to land a fighter," I huffed.
His laugh echoed through the room, sounding alien to my ears. I took a lazy shot toward him to make sure this was still reality. He responded with his own shots, which flew away harmlessly.
"Do you remember the first day you showed up at the training base?" he asked, a smile in his voice. "And you took one look at one of our practice rooms and asked the director how anywhere we might fight Harlock would have such a strange layout with so much cover. God, he was so flustered."
"I don't remember anything about my first day other than that you wouldn't stop hitting on me!" I fumed. Each time I took a shot toward his cover, he answered, but none of them even hit the metal we hid behind.
"I'm amazed you knew I was hitting on you," he cackled. "I had to be completely blunt about it before you noticed. When I first walked up to you I said 'Do you have a name, or can I call you mine?' – my best line! And you answered with something like 'Why would you call me your name? I don't even know it.'" His wheeze became an endless cackle. I was amazed he wasn't rolling on the floor.
"If that's your best line, you don't deserve a legitimate response anyway!" With him distracted, I dashed to another fighter. A shot whizzed behind me just before I took cover. From my new angle, I had a clear shot at him, but only for an instant. He dashed away with a smirk. As he raced for a new cover, I lined up for a shot, but he jumped back without warning and ran in the opposite direction. I could only blast off a couple sloppy shots before he found cover again.
"You know, sometimes I would rattle off innuendos just to see how many would fly over your head," he yelled. "And then Bainas would join in, and we'd just go back and forth for minutes at a time. You always looked so confused."
"Hey, I caught on after a while! I'd just never heard some of those before!"
"I'm not saying you were innocent. I mean, you were kind of naïve, but once I got you in bed-" He gave a low whistle.
"Not that you were all that difficult to impress," I snorted. "You had all your big talk and innuendos, and then what?"
He barked another laugh, and I found myself grinning alongside him. When I rushed toward another cover, he followed after me, each of us firing haphazardly at the other's trail.
"Come on, you lasted longer in matches than you did in bed," he taunted.
"I could say the same for you, losing to Bainas after two minutes."
"Hey, you lost to Zero after fifteen seconds."
"That's because it was Warrius! You lost to him after twenty!"
"Still longer than you! At least I didn't end up on my ass at the end of every fight."
"You talk big, but you were only three ranks higher than me in the end."
We dipped around cover, never staying in one place for long. Blasts flashed back and forth as easily as the insults. We ran without much care or thought, just like we used to. Our only strategy was to not have one, our paths so erratic it was difficult to aim for a clear shot. Despite the sharp pain from each heaving breath, I found myself laughing along with him. I didn't notice the tears spilling from my eyes until the wind of running cooled their wet tracks against my cheeks.
I shouldn't have let us fall into that same old routine. I shouldn't have remembered those times back at the base. I shouldn't have been so careless.
It should have been purposeful when I shot him through the chest. Once again, the world didn't feel real when it happened. He wasn't supposed to have run that direction. He wasn't supposed to get hit. One moment he was laughing, and the next there was a goddamn hole through his heart. The world was silent again. Empty. Wrong.
I watched him clutch his chest, watched his smile fade to terror, and I wondered how this world could ever be real. I had to wake up, somewhere, anywhere but here. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair.
The massive gap between us became nothing. I didn't feel myself cross it, but I knew I had to catch him before he fell, and then I had him in my arms, my hands warm with the blood seeping from the exit wound. "No," he whispered against my shoulder. "No, no, no."
I couldn't think anything different.
His legs must have given out because I was forced to sink to my knees under the sudden, full brunt of his weight. "Mamoru," I gasped, my eyes blurring as he relaxed against me.
Gun fights were over too quickly. There was no time for goodbyes, no time to take anything back. His blood soaked through the front of my shirt, sickeningly wet and warm. I should have made him a prisoner, no matter what he wanted. I should have done whatever it took to keep him alive. I couldn't lose him too.
He was too alive to die, too damn stupid and happy and alive.
"No," he continued, fear rippling through his voice as he jerked his head up. "I can't lose. They'll hurt him. They'll hurt Susumu."
"Susumu?" I'd heard the name from him before. He'd pulled a picture from his breast pocket of a scrawny brunet preteen. His little brother, he'd said.
"They'll kill him like they killed Zero's family," he sobbed, blood bubbling on his lips. He pawed at my chest, eyes so dull I doubted he could see my face in front of his. "I can't let them hurt my baby brother. I'm so sorry." His voice faded to a broken whisper. "I'm so sorry."
I wondered why he would ever need to apologize to me. Harlock screamed my name, and again, I wondered why. Pain exploded through my chest – red-hot like fire in my heart. The smell of fresh blood and burnt flesh tinged the air.
Then I knew only pain and the deep brown of Mamoru's eyes. They used to hold such affection for me, but now they held nothing. They began to fade to black along with everything else.
Mamoru's voice sounded so far away, but I could feel him against me, so warm. "Sorry, Yama… Susumu."
The world was so quiet, so dark. It must have been a dream, the sort of dream that faded from memory the more I tried to remember. Sleep felt like an abyss, but falling was pleasant. I couldn't feel any more pain, and somewhere, so far away, I heard Harlock's voice.
I only wished he didn't sound so sad.
I don't know what else you'd expect from me at this point.
Big thank you to all my reviewers! I struggled a lot with this chapter, so I would always go back and read over my reviews to give myself more motivation. I'm embarrassing, but at least I finally got out a chapter.
